Crown of Crystal Flame

by C. L. Wilson

  … with Love the kitten perched upon his shoulder, flicking her stubby little tail against his ear and purring so loud Lillis could hear it clear across the square.

  And then she knew, and her nine-year-old heart broke.

  “You’re not real.” Tears blurred her vision. “None of this is real.” Mama, Papa, Lorelle, Kieran, Kiel—the family and friends she loved so dearly—all were just an illusion. She turned to Eiliss, sobbing. “Why? Why are you doing this to me? “

  “Are you not safe?” the shining Fey replied. “Are you not happy? “

  “It’s all a lie!” she cried. “I thought Fey didn’t lie!”

  “Is it a lie to offer you what your heart desires? To make you happy and keep you safe from harm. Here, in the Mists, you can be with your mother. Is that not what you want most?”

  Hot tears ran down Lillis’s cheeks, and sobs tore from her throat in painful heaves. “But not like this!”

  Lorelle—or rather the illusion that wore Lorelle’s face—stepped forward. “Listen to Lady Eiliss. You are in danger out there. Here, with us, you are safe. You wanted to be safe, and so you are. You wanted to be with Mama, and she’s here. You wanted Kieran and Kiel, and they are here, too.”

  Lillis backed away. “No! No! I won’t stay here. This isn’t what I want.” Her wild, tear-filled gaze fixed on Mama, standing in the doorway, watching Lillis. She was the only one who didn’t say anything, the only one who didn’t try to convince Lillis to stay. She simply stood there, watching Lillis with wise and watchful eyes. It’s better to choke on a bitter truth than savor a honey-cake lie. Mama’s admonition rang in Lillis’s ears.

  Lillis squeezed her eyes shut and clutched Snowfoot to her chest. “Go away!” she cried. “Go away, all of you! This isn’t what I want! I want the truth! Show me the truth!”

  A hot tingling sensation flashed through her body. The burbling splash of the village fountain and the whisper of the wind rustling through the treetops faded. The pleading voices of Papa, Kieran, Kiel, and Lorelle died away and the world fell into utter silence.

  Pain intruded. It started as a dull ache, then accelerated to burning, throbbing spikes of pain jabbing her like knives.

  Lillis cried out, and her eyes flew open.

  The village in the misty valley was gone. Lorelle, Papa, Kieran, Kiel—Mama—all were gone. She lay buried in a pile of rubble. The world was dark except for a tiny shaft of pale light that illuminated the prison of rocks and dirt and broken tree limbs that lay heaped over her body.

  She couldn’t move. Could hardly breathe. Something heavy pressed down on her chest. She tried to move her hand, then cried out when bones grated and a sharp pain lanced up her arm.

  She coughed, then cried out again. Her chest was on fire. Each breath felt like the stab of a knife. She had no sensation at all below her chest, and she had a terrible feeling she knew why.

  Just two years ago, Tomy Sorris’s older brother had fallen from the roof of his family home while trying to sneak out his bedroom window and get into mischief with his friends. They said his back was broken and that he couldn’t move his arms or legs. His injuries had been too grave for the local hearth witch, and he’d died before a more powerful healer could come.

  Was that why the Mists had created that illusion of Mama and Papa and the beautiful city in the valley? Had whatever magic lived here in the Mists been trying to make her last bells as happy and peaceful as possible?

  Lillis closed her eyes and let the tears welling in her eyes spill down into her hair. “Mama… Papa…” This bit of hard truth wasn’t just bitter, it was the most awful torment she’d ever known.

  She was dying.

  She’d thought she was going to die before, when war had broken out at Teleon and she’d seen the darrokken racing up the mountainside towards her, but now she knew it for certain. Death was crouching patiently, just beyond what she could see. She could feel its cold nearness in each painful, struggling gasp of breath. Soon it would pounce, just like Snowfoot pouncing on a jingle ball.

  Frightened, she tried to call out, but her throat was too dry, her lungs too short of breath to do more than croak raggedly. “Papa? Lorelle?”

  No answer.

  “Kieran? Kiel? Anyone?” Her weak, raspy call fell like a coin into a bottomless wishing well, swallowed quickly by silence and darkness.

  Her head fell back. More frightened, desolate tears spilled from her eyes, and her broken ribs sent jolts of pain radiating through her with each small, ragged sob she couldn’t manage to hold back.

  For the first time in her life, Lillis was all alone.

  And she knew, if someone didn’t find her soon, she would die here, lost in the Faering Mists, trapped in the rubble of a shattered mountain.

  Eld ~ Boura Fell

  A knock sounded at Vadim Maur’s office door.

  “Enter.”

  The door pushed inward, and Primage Zev stood on the threshold. “Generals Corag, Grosh, and Daemor are in position, Most High.”

  “Excellent. And our Celierian friends?”

  “Awaiting your command, Master Maur. The Tairen Soul is approaching Primage Fen’s position.”

  Vadim leaned back and touched his steepled fingers to the underside of his chin. “Tell Fen to spring the trap.”

  Celieria ~ Northern Border

  The missile struck without warning.

  It came from behind and plowed into Rain’s hind leg just below his left hip, detonating an explosion of raw pain. He roared and wrapped Ellysetta in an instinctive buffer of magic as he careened through the air and fought to regain control. Instantly, a new agony seared him, worse than weapon’s initial bite. Needles of white-hot pain shot through his veins and stabbed behind his eyes. A familiar bitter tang filled the back of his mouth.

  Sel’dor.

  «Ellysetta, hang on! We’re under fire!» Despite the pain, he maintained his protective weave around her.

  A moment later, the sky before them turned black with a barrage of bowcannon spears flying faster and higher than any he’d ever encountered. Rain reared back. A second bolt pierced his chest, near his foreleg, while a third skimmed by so close it tore the edge of his right wing. He roared and banked with desperate speed as a fourth bolt scored his ribs and tore a hole through his left wing, leaving splinters of sel’dor behind. With Ellysetta on his back, he could not Change to avoid the missiles.

  «Rain! To your left!» Ellysetta spun a dense pattern of Air and slammed it into the volley of spears, batting them away bare moments before they pierced Rain’s heart.

  «Hold on. Keep low.» His wings flapped wildly as he fought to retain his balance and keep them aloft while he scanned the ground below for the source of the weapons fire. A Celierian Border Lord’s castle hugged the bend of the Heras River, and he spied the bowcannon on its ramparts just as they spat a fresh volley of sel’dor-tipped missiles.

  Tairen breath heaved from his lungs, meeting the fine mist of venom that sprayed from his fangs and igniting just a few fingerspans from his muzzle when the two combined. Tairen fire poured forth in a roaring jet, incinerating the incoming spears to harmless black dust. He screamed a defiant challenge and dove toward the ramparts, raining fire upon the castle walls, consuming one full line of bowcannon and the soldiers scrambling to reload them.

  Ellysetta flung weaves and Air and Fire everywhere his flame had not scorched. She cried out and her weaves cut off just as Rain felt the prickle of arrows pepper his hide. He spun away, roaring with fury. She’d been arrow-shot.

  «Shei’tani?»

  She clung to his back, leaning low over the saddle front.

  «I’m fine.»

  But she wasn’t. Two sel’dor-barbed arrows had buried themselves deep in her back, and he felt them as plainly as if it were his own back burning with their foul acid. Just the effort to speak to him on Spirit racked her slender body with pain.

  They had wounded his mate! He screamed his Rage, and tairen fury turned his vision
scarlet.

  Before he could circle back and fire the rest of the castle, a third volley of spears burst from a line of cannon hidden in the surrounding forest. He banked instinctively in a tight, northward wheel, but the spears came too fast. Fresh black agony ripped through his right shoulder and back leg.

  He tumbled through the air, losing altitude faster than he was losing blood. His tattered wings fought for balance, but every powerful flap shredded muscles against the razor-sharp shards of sel’dor in his flesh. His right wing, impeded by the spear piercing his shoulder, could not keep up with his left, and he careened helplessly northward, towards Eld.

  «Rain! Look!»

  Below, he saw what had previously escaped his notice: Eld soldiers, thousands of them, massing beneath camouflage netting draped between the trees. They raced out from beneath their cover, and sunlight glinted off their armor and unsheathed weapons. A company of archers loosed a hailstorm of arrows. He spun what protection he could around Ellysetta’s own shield and fired a path through the dark cloud of sel’dor missiles. He put on a burst of speed as he passed the archers, trying to outpace their second volley, but a Mage must have been accelerating their shots. Arrows tore through the tattered membranes of his wings and sank into his hide. He heard Ellysetta’s pained gasp as two of the missiles pierced their shields and buried themselves in her leg.

  He saw the Eld running in pursuit as he plummeted down a faltering glide path. «Hold on, Ellysetta!»

  The trees rose up quickly—too quickly—and he cannoned into them, tucking his wings tight against his back as he smashed through the treetops. Desperately, roaring in pain when the sel’dor punished his use of magic, he threw a protective web around Ellysetta just before he lost control and went tumbling downward. He felt Ellysetta being flung from the saddle and heard her cry out, but there was nothing he could do to stop her fall. He crashed through the forest, shattering massive trunks with his tumbling body. His wingbones snapped, but even that searing pain was nothing compared to the agony of the sel’dor buried in his flesh or the worse agony of Ellysetta’s scream as she fell to earth. His paws flexed, claws extending to dig into the trees, the ground, and even solid rock to slow his momentum.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of destruction, his battered tairen’s body came to rest against a small copse of fragrant brindlewood tree. Tiny yellow leaves drifted down upon him in a shower of bright winter fragrance.

  CHAPTER NINE

  On dream’s whispered breath, I search for thee.

  On wings of hope, I soar.

  On desire’s breeze, I call to thee,

  And pray with song and roar.

  Tairen’s Chant to His Beloved,

  a poem by Rainier vel’En Daris, Tairen Soul

  The Faering Mists

  Stinging little pinpricks roused Lillis back to consciousness and she looked down to find her kitten, Snowfoot, kneading her chest with his tiny, sharp claws. The pouch tied around her neck that had secured the kitten had slung off to one side during her fall, which explained why she hadn’t noticed the kitten earlier.

  Snowfoot mewed piteously and nudged his head against her hand, the way Love, the kitten, always had when she was hungry or thirsty.

  “I’m sorry,” Lillis whispered. Her voice came out scratchy and hoarse. “I’m so sorry.” More helpless tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. Snowfoot was hers to care for, and she couldn’t do any more to save the kitten than she could to save herself.

  Lillis started to sob again, then stopped because it hurt too much. She’d never been this alone or this badly wounded or this frightened. Always someone had been there to watch over her and protect her and keep her safe from harm—Mama, Ellie, Papa, Kieran, even Lorelle.

  Lorelle would never just lie down and die. Lorelle was the strong one, the fearless one. Lillis could almost hear Lorelle now, irascible and impatient. “Stop sniveling, you ninnywit. What good has that ever done anyone?”

  Thinking of her twin made Lillis’s tears flow faster. For all that Lorelle could be snappish and bossy, there was no one in the world Lillis was closer to. She couldn’t think of a single time in her life when they’d been apart for more than a few bells. Until now.

  Lillis squeezed her eyes shut and tried again to contact her twin. Lorelle… Lorelle, can you hear me? It wasn’t magic, exactly. Not magic the way the Fey spun it, in any case. It was more like sharing thoughts—as if some part of them had been united in the womb and never fully separated.

  Again and again, she called her twin, but Lorelle didn’t respond. It occurred to Lillis that perhaps Lorelle had not survived the destruction of the mountain—that she had perished as Lillis herself was so close to doing—but as quickly as that awful thought surfaced, she shoved it away, out of her mind. No, Lorelle was alive. She had to be. Maybe the magic of the Mists did something to silence their connection. Or maybe Lorelle was living in some happy illusion like the one that had nearly trapped Lillis.

  She tried calling Papa, but that didn’t work either. She hadn’t really expected it to. If Lorelle couldn’t hear her, it was highly unlikely Papa would. Her call to Ellie met the same silence as all the others.

  Finally, in desperation, she reached out to the last living person with whom she shared a connection: Kieran vel Solande. Surely, if anyone could break the power of the Faering Mists and find her, Kieran could.

  Assuming he was still alive.

  “You are alive,” she muttered. “I know you are. I know it.” Please, gods, let him still be alive. She clenched her jaw and gathered her strength, her last ounce of hope, and all the emotions she associated with Kieran: The way he made her feel so safe. The joy when he—or rather the illusion of him—had turned in that city in the valley of Mists and that familiar, dazzling smile had broken across his face. The love that blossomed in her heart whenever he was near.

  Fusing those energies together, weaving them into her call the way she’d secretly spun magic all her life, she flung the cry out into the Mists, praying for the gods to grant it wings. Kieran! Help me. Pease, help me.

  The effort was too much. Darkness closed in upon her. She was so weak. So tired. As if sensing Death creeping near, Snowfoot began to mew more loudly.

  A clatter of pebbles sounded overhead, and dirt showered down upon her face. A weak, painful cough racked her frame.

  “Lillis!”

  A muffled voice echoed in her ears, tinny yet strangely familiar. Light turned the inside of her closed eyelids rosy. With effort, she cracked open her eyes. Images swirled slowly into focus. Faces hovered over her, surrounded by a glow of light. Blue eyes burning with fear and concern held her gaze as strong, familiar hands reached for her.

  She breathed his name on a weary sigh as her lashes fell shut again, and the light faded. “Kieran.”

  Eld ~ The Forests North of the Heras River

  Ellysetta sat up and pressed both hands against her head. The world was spinning drunkenly, and she was so dizzy she could barely sit upright. Flung free of the saddle, she’d gone flying through the air and into the evergreen branches of a large conifer. She’d crashed and tumbled through the branches, losing all sense of balance and direction until the ground rose up to smack her in the face.

  She spat out dirt and blood, then wiped the back of her hand against her mouth and took inventory of her injuries. Long, bleeding scratches scored the exposed skin of her hands and face, but her shielding weave and leathers had saved her from more serious wounds from the fall. Her hair bristled with leaves and splinters from broken tree limbs.

  She started to draw her legs up in order to stand, but pain lanced up her left leg. She cried out and clutched her thigh. Her hand came away covered in blood. The arrows that had struck her thigh and back had been ripped out during the fall.

  She held her hands over the gash in her leg and spun a healing weave to stop the bleeding, hissing as fragments of sel’dor burned beneath her skin. The barbs from the Elden arrows had broken off i
nside her leg, but there was nothing she could do about them now. She left the barbs in place and sealed the skin over them.

  The instant the leg was healed enough to stand on, she got to her feet and sent out a narrow, questing thread of Spirit. «Rain?»

  He didn’t answer, but his trail was plainly marked by the line of shattered trees and debris from his crashing descent. Pain shot up her leg as she took her first hobbling step towards him, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to endure it.

  She’d seen the Elden army as she and Rain had fallen out of the sky. She knew they weren’t far behind, and she knew that the Eld would already be combing the woods. Any chime now, they’d reach this very spot and follow the crash path directly to her mate.

  She pressed her palm against her leg and hobbled faster. «Rain, I’m coming.» Desperation gave her the strength to ignore the pain and begin to run. She vaulted clumsily over small downed trees and ran around several larger ones.

  When she finally caught sight of Rain, motionless, still tairen, covered by a blanket of yellow leaves, her breath stalled in her lungs.

  “Rain!” Adrenaline shot through her. She covered the remaining distance between them at a full-out sprint and fell to her knees beside him. Her hands plunged into his thick fur at his neck, seeking a pulse. “Don’t be dead. Please, don’t be dead.”

  A rattling breath wheezed out of him. «Not… dead… yet.» Pain accompanied the faltering thread of Spirit, muted but still sharp enough to make Ellysetta clench her teeth.

  She smoothed her hands over him, trying desperately to hide her terror as her hands came away drenched in blood. Sel’dor-filled wounds didn’t bleed, but he’d taken enough glancing blows and external injuries from the crash that the ground beneath him was rapidly becoming a blood-soaked pool.

  «Rain… can you Change?» She hated to ask. If he were so injured that a simple Spirit weave felt like knife blades on bone, the powerful, concentrated magic required by the Change would likely kill him. «I need to get you somewhere so I can get the sel’dor out of you and heal you, but we can’t hide while you remain tairen.»